Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – 41

With the blizzard outside over, Miles prepares his men to kill Kimblee and Kimblee’s two subordinates. Ed opposes the idea of killing them, but Miles warns him that letting his guard down will get him or others killed. Meanwhile, still in the tunnels, Marcoh’s group stops for a rest, and Scar helps decode part of the research documents. Much of it is about immortality and gold, and May Chang reveals that those two things are connected for the Xing, with one theory being that the person who taught alchemy to the Xing had gold hair and was immortal. The group then finds the exit of the tunnels, and shortly thereafter, they also find Al buried in the snow. He tells them about the change at Briggs and how they have to hide somewhere else, so Scar decides to take them to a nearby village.

Back at the mining town, Ed is now accompanied by one of Miles’ men inside a suit of armor that looks like Al. Since Kimblee is looking for an underground route, Miles has his men set up sniper positions nearby, but Ed decides to go talk with Kimblee first. Ed wants Kimblee to leave the search to the Briggs soldiers, however Kimblee has realized what’s going on around him and uses alchemy to kick up all the snow in the area. This allows him to get away, and while his two Chimera subordinates keep Ed busy, Kimblee comes across a bunch of footprints. Ed meanwhile finds himself at a disadvantage initially because the Chimera can rely on their smell with this low visibility, but he turns around and uses this to his advantage by transmuting a bunch of dynamite into ammonia, the smell of which takes out the Chimera.

Ed then catches up with Kimblee, and Kimblee prepares to fight with his Philosopher’s Stone, but Ed proves faster than anticipated, knocking the stone away and cutting Kimblee’s hand. Ed thinks that he’s won, but Kimblee feels that Ed should have finished him off in that moment and reveals that he’s got another Philosopher’s Stone. He uses it to blow up the floor, sending Ed and the Chimera falling down into the shaft below. When Ed regains consciousness, he realizes that he’s been impaled by a metal beam. Although the initial shock causes him to collapse, Ed finds enough strength to transmute away the back part of the metal beam. At around this same time, Al collapses as well because his body is pulling at his soul again.

Back in the mine shaft, Ed uses alchemy to free the Chimera from where they are buried so that they can pull the piece of metal out of him. His plan is to use alchemy to close the wound after the beam is out, and he knows that in lieu of a Philosopher’s Stone, he’ll have to use his own life. As one of the Chimera pulls out the beam, Ed focuses on how he’s a Philosopher’s Stone of one soul, and he tries to remember the feeling from when he used Envy’s stone. In the end, Ed is successful, but he’s too weak to continue on after Kimblee. One of the Chimera then finds the Philosopher’s Stone that Kimblee dropped, and since he and his counterpart decide that they’re free now, they carry Ed with them as they go looking for a way out and a doctor.

Preview

So the first half of the episode was innocent enough with Al being found by Marcoh’s group and the beginning of the showdown with Kimblee. If nothing else, I found fake Al to be pretty amusing. That left the second half, and it looked to be where all the action was. The battle between Ed and Kimblee’s Chimera was nice, but it was much more interesting to see Ed go up against Kimblee himself because of how the tide of battle swung both ways: Ed first having the edge physically and Kimblee then revealing and using his back-up Philosopher’s Stone.

And that’s where things really got good. I was pretty shocked to see Ed impaled like that (come to think of it, that would have made a great cliffhanger too), but what really got me was seeing the Chimera guy pull the beam out of him and Ed using alchemy and his own life energy to help close the wound. It was such an incredibly intense scene, and I loved how Ed called himself a Philosopher’s Stone of one soul. Of course, Paku Romi deserves a lot of the credit too for how she was able to convey Ed’s determination along with all the pain and screaming.

The irony of course is that the Chimera found the lost Philosopher’s Stone afterward. It’s a shame that Ed isn’t still conscious because I get the feeling that they’ll forget to give it to him or will lose it again or something. Anyway, from the preview, it looks like we’re going to be seeing Rose next week as well as Hohenheim who appears to get attacked by Pride. The series sure is heating up again.

They move pretty quick to get from that mining town to Lior again. I’ll have to check the manga to see how long it took there. It seemed longer to me. I hope they can slow down a little bit to not ruin this anime by having it coincide with the ending.

Penguintruth, I thought for sure the whole Izumi thing (Bido as well) would be in this episode. They can’t not show that part…I mean, Bido is the whole reason as to why Greed plays such a role coming up again.

But not even the manga shows anything of Hohenheim after he reveals himself to Izumi, he just appears in Lior next time we see him. What kind of progression, or rather important progression, is showing him walking to Lior? None.

you people want the scene where Bido follows the soldiers to Central after they go look for her

I wasnt talking about that, in fact I never even mentioned that. I was talking about what penguin said about Hohenheim. He said he wanted a scene that shows how Hohenheim got to Lior? What? Why? Not only is that never shown in the manga but its needless exposition.

God i loved this scene. Not many people can have the clarity of mind to quickly think of a clear solution to save themselves after realising they’ve been impaled. Ily Romi Paku, the greatest seiyuu EVER.

Everyone is right, that wasn’t seen in the manga. It still implies everything Hohenheim told Izumi and Sig, so it’s fine.

I just think it really needs that Bido scene though to tie it all together. I really hope it’s next episode. You know, that scene answers so much. Just why did Izumi and Sig leave Dublith when they have a shop? We don’t know as of yet. Without Maison, we wonder how they could leave. Once that scene is shown, not only will we know why, but also what Central’s newest plan as well.

I also would have liked just to SEE Greed behind Father before his flashback started (like in the manga). Just so you can have your question about “Where the heck is Greed now?” answered. Sitting behind Father, bored out of his mind.

I know it’s a bit premature but I’m sort of wondering what they are gonna do when they get to the scene with May and Envy and her “naive” decision if they changed the way she was introduced into the series and didn’t even show all those characters in the Yoki story.

Ah, I wish her introduction was like in the manga with her saving them at the mines…it made me immediatly think she was awesome, but the way she was introduced in the anime makes her come off as more annoying and unnecessary.

I’ve just seen the episode of fmab with subs, and DAMN did they animated the part where the chimera pulled the beam out of ed VERY well. and this goes into another one of my “epic scene” book. Anyways, this is just the getting started, and things will be heating up even more….again.

First Al redeems two of Kimblee’s chimera henchmen, now Ed redeems two more. I think there is some sort of underlying theme of Ed and Al’s cliched principle of not resorting to killing to getting problems solved.

Sometimes I amaze myself, even without being spoiled further by the manga, it does seems like my guess that Hohenheim is the Sage of the West for Xing is true. (I make no apologies for bragging, so sue me. XD )

Hey, Rose is back again. I wonder if I should be glad or disappointed that she will no longer suffer the tragic fate of her counterpart in the first anime series. (Probably means I must be reading too many ero FMA doujinshis. LOL )

Ed saving the lives of his enemies had 2 different effects in this episode. With Kimblee it almost cost him his own life, whereas with the chimeras it resulted in the opposite. I find it interesting. It also shows the different kinds of people which exist. I really liked Kimblee and Ed’s fight (2 amazing characters).

However, I LOVED the scene with Ed having the beam removed out of him. I couldn’t flaw it, it was incredible. Ed’s voice, the animation, the music… even Darius’ expression all made the scene. Ed was quite inspirational and moving in the latter part of this episode.

Anyone else notice that Scar no longer had the bandage on his arm from earlier?

It’s little continuity errors like that that kinda annoy me. It’s right there on the manga page, I don’t know why they left it out.

They did the same thing in episode 19 with Barry’s hand. Hawkeye shot his body’s hand, right through. Yet towards the end when he grabs the soul plate, his hand is perfectly fine, despite bleeding all over the place in the manga shot.

This episode was soooooo good!
The part where Ed uses his own life energy as a Philosopher’s Stone quite intense and I’m definitely gonna re-watch this part time and again ! actually, you know what, I’m going on an FMA Manga marathon RIGHT NOW!

Staying VERY true to the manga so far. It remains to be seen if BONES really intends to end this at 50+ episodes, and what direction they intend to take the series in if that’s really the case, because to do so at some point they’ll have to divert.